Giving Thanks for Luther

Contrary to some people's opinions, I do not seek to view everything our Holy Father does through a lens of suspicion, mistrust and hostility.

However, I did need to pause for a while when I heard of the plan to celebrate Martin Luther and the Reformation.

However, I am reminded of St Paul's admonition, to give thanks for everything, always. Moreover, I recall the audacious line in the Exsultet: O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem.

And we regularly give thanks for the passion and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In that context, I can give thanks for Martin Luther and the Reformation. For God will draw good out of everything; and if we can celebrate Adam's fault - evil though it was - and give thanks for the Crucifixion - evil though that was - then surely we can give thanks for the Reformation and the work of Luther.

And though much evil has flowed from them, just as it has from Adam's sin, God still manages to draw greater good from it.  And although Luther and the Reformation did not win for us so great a Redeemer, Adam's sin having already done so, they may have contributed to the Scourging, or the Crown of Thorns, for which also we give thanks.

And we have countless saints and martyrs, and great clarifications in theology from Trent onwards, as some of the fruits of the evil wrought in the sixteenth century.

Deo gratias!